State Literary Memorial Museum I Kolos. State Literary and Memorial Museum of Yakub Kolas. Section of the exhibition "Childhood"
Photo: State Literary and Memorial Museum of Yakub Kolas
Photo and description
The State Literary and Memorial Museum of Yakub Kolas was opened on December 4, 1959 in the house where the people's poet of Belarus lived. Located at F. Skorina Ave., 66a.
Today it is impossible to imagine modern Belarusian literature without Yakub Kolas. The great Belarusian poet sang a song of revolution and war, glorifying the heroic feat of his people.
Yakub Kolas (Konstantin Mikhailovich Mitskevich) was born in 1882 in the village of Okonchitsy. Since 1906, he led an active revolutionary struggle, published poems and poems with vivid revolutionary content. In 1928, Yakub Kolas became an academician, during the war he wrote poems about the heroic feat of the Belarusian people, after the war, in 1946 he became chairman of the Belarusian Peace Committee, and since 1953 he was the editor of the Russian-Belarusian dictionary.
The two-story house with a garden in which the museum is located was built on the territory of the Academy of Sciences of Belarus. The house was rebuilt several times and in the form in which we can see it now, it was built in 1952 for the 70th anniversary of the poet.
The museum houses an exhibition with a total area of 319 square meters, located in 10 halls, telling about the creative path of Yakub Kolas, about the famous guests who visited this house, the interiors of the study and bedroom have been restored.
In the garden of Yakub Kolas, his favorite pine trees, under which he loved to sit with friends, and other trees planted by the hands of the poet are preserved. The poet lived a modest, simple life. Everything in the museum has been preserved and recreated in the same form as it was during the life of Yakub Kolas.
Yakub Kolas is a nominal classic of Belarusian literature of the 20th century. I’ll say right away that I don’t like Kolas’s books - all the problems raised in them have long crumbled and withered along with the system that gave birth to them. Or even earlier. Or even it did not exist at all, this problem.
In short, all of Kolas’s books are about peasants and the village. Even when he wrote about the city, it still turned out to be a book by a villager about the village. He couldn’t write about anything else and didn’t want to. Endless dull wooden huts, gray and uninteresting life, homespun shirts and rotten potatoes, endless misfortunes of honest working people “succumb to master’s oppression.” Just so you understand, it’s like if the entire history of the United States was reduced to the life of African-American ghettos. Then the endless partisans began, speaking in quotes from the young security officer’s handbook.
For this he received a bunch of titles and awards and died in a warm bed. And this was at a time when Kafka and Joyce, Thomas Mann and Bertrand Russell were creating. When sparks rained down from under the literary anvil, forging a new understanding of what a person is.
However, let's not talk about sad things. Be that as it may, Kolas still remains a prominent figure in the culture of Belarus; the central square of the capital and the street on which the house with my Minsk apartment is located are named after him. Let's just see how "Dziadzka Jakub" lived in the fifties.
03. Kolas's house is located in Minsk, near the Academy of Sciences. In the early fifties it was the outskirts of the city, but now it is the very center - the city has grown greatly in an eastern direction. The house was built by architect Georgy Zaborsky; the same one who designed many buildings in . The house looks quite recognizable and interesting.
05. Let's go around the house. To the left of the entrance there is a cellar called “lyadownya”.
07. To paraphrase a well-known aphorism - “You can take grandfather out of the village, but never take the village out of grandfather.”
08. Behind the fence you can see a simpler building, where the children and relatives of Yakub Kolas were moved after his death, turning his house into a museum. For some reason, it seems to me that this house began to be designed and built during Yakub’s lifetime, right in front of his office window - but more on that later.
09. From the back side, Kolas House looks like this.
11. Let's take a look inside. The house begins with a coat rack (I remembered the proverb about the theater), on which the original copper hooks are still preserved. Unfortunately, this is one of the few original features remaining in the house - especially on the first floor.
12. This is the view from the hallway. On both sides of the shooting point there are two walk-through rooms. Directly - something like a former kitchen. Now in Kolas’s house there is a museum exhibition made in the best Soviet traditions - throwing away everything that is real and leaving what is ideologically true. There is neither a bathroom nor a kitchen left in the house - as you know, Soviet writers do not pee or eat, but only constantly think about the fate of the people, the world revolution, and write and write.
13. Here, for example, is a door. Personally, I find it much more interesting than the endless collections of works by Yakub Kolas displayed around. What was behind it? What was real life like in the house? I can look at the book in the store. Why did they throw out the old handle and screw on a Chinese gold-plated one, bought for $2 at the Household Goods on the Logoisk tract?
14. Books under glass. On the right, by the way, is an excellent illustration in the traditions of Belarusian book graphics, but still, books have no place here. Bring back Kolasov’s kitchen, I want to see where he had breakfast every day.
15. Let's look for some more original parts. Here, for example, is a molded plinth. I don't know if he was here in the fifties.
16. The door frame is certainly original. Maybe a little touched up during the renovation.
17. Let's go to the second floor, there are more interesting original things left there. Ladder. Under the ceiling is a typical lamp from the fifties (I have the same one at home, left over from the previous owners of the apartment), to the right are doors to a large balcony-terrace, straight ahead are doors to Kolas’s office and bedroom (we’ll look there later), to the left are doors to the front part of the house. Let's go there.
18. On the second floor, the original parquet from the fifties has been preserved. Yes, just like that - not very high quality, uneven. The joints between the rooms were “made” from leftovers. The parquet creaks when walking. By the way, on the first floor, under the modern gray carpeting, the same parquet remained - old and creaky.
19. Living room. The original furniture remained here - Kolas brought it, it seems, from somewhere in the Baltic states, and at that time it was already an antique. The furniture is, in my opinion, rather tasteless.
20. Despite its fairly presentable appearance, the house smells of a poor village - the smell of dampness and mice. I don't know why that is.
21. Under the ceiling in the living room there is a tacky socket.
22. TV. I don’t know if Kolas watched it. Currently, only one skeleton remains of the original TV set from the fifties, inside of which there is a Horizon “cube” - already also old.
24. Modern double-glazed windows were inserted into old window frames. It's good that they left the pens.
25. Dining room on the second floor. Reminiscent of a typical Minsk apartment of the fifties.
26. The furniture here is nicer than in the living room.
28. Door handle. This is real life - the video with which the door closed. More often than not, it fell inside - and I had to put a rubber band on the door frame so that the door would close tightly. The screws are also very remarkable - they were often not tightened, but hammered in - once and for all.
30. Typewriter. This is still a pre-revolutionary model, to which the Belarusian letter “у неслаговае” has been added. An eloquent text is typed on paper - about the wise policy of the Communist Party, the Soviet people, blah blah blah. And this is at a time when Elias Canetti... okay, let's not talk about sad things.
24. Bookcase. I will not comment on the choice of the writer’s books.
24. Clock on the bookcase. In general, there are quite a few clocks and several barometers left in the room - this produces a rather strange and mysterious impression. And it seems to me that I have figured out this riddle. Sitting in the office of his new house and constantly looking at the clock, which was counting down time so quickly, the already very middle-aged Yakub Kolas realized that this house was not built for him at all - but for the future museum named after him. In which ideologically loyal guides will talk about his life.
25. I know what Kolas felt when he sat down at a new desk in his office every day. They no longer expect books from him, no longer expect poetry; there is a kind of ban on transformations - he must remain a “Belarusian writer about the village.” There is no need to write anything else.
26. Life is lived. You live in a museum of your own caution, spinelessness, and loyalty. Those who were different lie in the ground with their heads covered. You survived, you're better than them. Really, Jakub? - asks the pressed owl.
27. I don’t know what Kolas answered to his conscience.
28. The last door remains. The door to the writer's bedroom is a small passage room from the office. It leaves an amazing impression - in the farthest corner of the huge house there is a small room hidden. The ceiling is lower than in the rest of the house. There is a small, almost teenage crib in the corner. At the foot of the bed there is a door to the restroom, to the left of the door there is a stove.
Everything is very reminiscent of a small room in a village house.
29. On the wall hangs a portrait of his son and a barometer. It seems to me that it was in this room that Kolas felt comfortable. He recalled the times of “Nasha Niva” - when there was no USSR, no titles and regalia, no daily need to write about successes in the sowing season, no nervous obligation to answer daily calls from a “benevolent organization”.
He remembered life without a golden cage.
30. I woke up, looked at the ceiling and thought and thought.
30. And on the chair lies the writer’s briefcase...
Over the last four years of his life, which passed in his new house, Yakub Kolas did not write a single new book.
Today we bring to your attention a report from the Yakub Kolas State Literary and Memorial Museum in Minsk, which celebrates its 55th anniversary in 2014. This is truly a wonderful piece of history in the heart of the capital - thank God, not affected by the “newfangled” trends, when instead of wooden frames, double-glazed windows are inserted into the windows and the walls are repainted... You feel amazing here: you can’t help but think that the owner will come out and say hello.
In the house where the museum is now located, the people's poet of Belarus Yakub Kolas lived for the last 11 years of his life. Museum visitors pass through the same doors through which the poet passed, look into the same mirrors and can sit on the same bench. 
The head of the museum department, Maria Kazakevich, said that the house was built according to the design of Georgy Zaborsky in 1952 as a gift from the government of Belarus for the 70th anniversary of Kolas. By the way, immediately after the Great Patriotic War at the end of 1944, the poet settled on this place in a small wooden house, to which a stone extension was made in 1947. On the third day after the poet’s death, a resolution was adopted by the Central Committee of the Red Cross to perpetuate the memory of Yakub Kolas, one of the points of which was the creation of a museum. On December 4, 1959, the Yakub Kolas Museum opened its doors to its first visitors. Now here you can see the 4th exhibition, which is divided into two parts: on the first floor - literary and documentary, and on the second - memorial. 
The most interesting exhibits are always photographs and personal items. For example, you can see the bell that Yakub Kolas used in early 1906, when he worked as a teacher at the Verkhmenskaya school. But the violin that belonged to Yanka Mavr - she and Yakub Kolas were not only friends, but also matchmakers: Kolos’s youngest son married Mavr’s daughter. It was Mikhail Mitskevich who donated the violin to the museum. 
In the first room we see items that children used at the end of the 21st - beginning of the 20th century when they went to school: a slate board (analogous to a modern tablet) and a canvas bag in which school things were stored. It is no coincidence that next to it lies a collection of Krylov’s fables, whose works are studied at school. This was one of the favorite authors of Yakub Kolas, who wrote his first poems precisely under the influence of Krylov’s fables. 
A watch that belonged to representatives of three generations of Mickiewicz: Yakub Kolas, then his brother and nephew. 
The snakeskin bag was purchased for Yakub Kolas' beloved wife Maria Dmitrievna in Vilnius around the 1940s. An interesting story actually happened with the silver glasses that were given to Kolas for his 25th marriage anniversary. The glasses were kept in a safe, but in the first days of the war a bomb hit the house, and then an acquaintance of Kolas buried the safe in his garden. When the safe was dug up after the war, the cups were slightly deformed, damaged by fire, but intact. 
Yakub Kolas raised three sons. The middle son Yuri, unfortunately, died at the beginning of the war. He was fond of clay pigeon shooting, was a master of sports and a hunter, and participated in various competitions. The double-barreled shotgun that can be seen at the exhibition was purchased by Kolas specifically for Yuri. But for his youngest son Mikhail, who was fond of photography, the poet purchased a German camera. - Mikhas Mickiewicz loves filming even today, continues the head of the museum department. - An exhibition of his interesting photographs was recently organized.
A silver cigarette case, which was presented by the Belarusian government for the 60th anniversary (1942) of the people's poet. Only at the end of his life did Yakub Kolas give up such a bad habit as smoking. Receipts that testify to the kindness and compassion of Yakub Kolas. In the post-war period, the poet provided financial assistance to many who turned to him, and many letters were sent to the people's poet... 
- We strive to make our museum more modern and use new means, - Maria Kazakevich continues the tour and points to the large touch screen - the multimedia complex "Man. Epoch. Time". - Using the complex, you can see those materials that were not included in the exhibition, test your knowledge of the works of Yakub Kolas in a quiz, take a virtual trip to the places of Kolas, make postcards or a disc with a recording of your own reading of the poet’s works as a souvenir.
In one of the exhibition halls, the only virtual book in Belarus, “Poetic Kolasiana”, is placed, leafing through the pages of which you can get acquainted with the poet’s lifetime editions, illustrations for works, excerpts from productions of plays and films. 
But in this hall, museum staff work together to show children puppet shows, which young spectators really like. Currently there are 5 puppet shows in the repertoire, and several more interesting fairy tales are on the way. 
It seems that on the first floor nothing was left without our attention - then we move on and go up to the second floor, where the living room, dining room and the heart of the museum are located - the poet’s study. 
The living room was always noisy and crowded: everyone who looked into the poet’s house was received here. By the way, Kolos celebrated his 70th birthday in this living room. 
In the exhibition you can see gifts that friends and acquaintances gave the poet, for example, a painting from the Azgur family, which was painted by the wife of the famous sculptor Zaire Azgur Galina Gorelova. 
And here is the piano, which celebrated its centenary, purchased by the poet’s daughters-in-law. Kolas himself did not play it; the instrument he owned was the violin. 
The oldest exhibit is probably an antique chandelier made of bronze and crystal - the same age as Kolas: it is 132 years old. 
Also in the exhibition you can see one of the first Temp TVs, although the poet himself did not like to watch TV, he liked listening to the radio more. 
This hall is a popular place to take photos during weddings: young people say that they like the cozy homely atmosphere. There is a sound installation in the living room: numerous recordings have been preserved in the museum’s collections, and visitors will probably be interested in hearing the voice of Yakub Kolas reading his poems. Also preserved are recordings of the voices of Petrus Brovka, Maxim Tank, Grigory Shirma, singer Larisa Aleksandrovskaya... During the life of Yakub Kolas, the dining room was on the first floor, but in the updated exhibition it was placed on the second. The whole family always gathered around this large table every day to discuss various events, share plans for the next day... 
Yakub Kolas received many gifts: here is a towel from the pupils of the orphanage in Chausy. 
The poet's study and bedroom, where he spent most of his time, are located in the oldest part of the house, which was added in 1947 to a small wooden house. 
Kolos got up very early, at 6 o’clock in the morning, and always went to work on his farmstead. When I was younger, I sawed, cleared snow, and looked after flowers myself. He, a country man, liked all this very much. Relatives remember that Yakub Kolas carried out scientific experiments: he planted barley and wheat near his estate and monitored the plants. Kolos liked to say: “There are two things that lift my spirits: a well-written poem and the rain that fell at noon.” The poet was very worried when there was a lot of rain or drought, which interfered with the harvest. 
A captured typewriter, but Yakub Kolas himself did not type on it, and until the end of his life he wrote only with a pen, using ink. A secretary was hired to reprint the poet's manuscripts. In this house, Yakub Kolas finished writing the trilogy “On Rostanakh”, the poems “Rybakov’s Hut” and “On the Ways of Freedom”. 
Memorial corner in the courtyard: 4 oak trees were planted by Yakub Kolas in honor of his three sons and himself. Unfortunately, the birch tree planted in honor of my wife recently withered away. 
Entrance fee in 2014: Schoolchildren - 6000 bel. rubles Students - 8,400 bel. rubles Adults - 12,000 rubles. rubles Excursion services in 2014: Schoolchildren, students, students - 12,200 bel. rubles Adults - 12,200 rubles. rubles Other services in 2014: Free admission for single visitors - last Saturday of every month. Free visit days for all categories of citizens: November 3 - Yakub Kolos Memorial Day May 18 - International Museum Day Free entry to the museum in accordance with the Law of the Republic of Belarus "On Museums and the Museum Fund of the Republic of Belarus" is provided for: - Veterans of the Great Patriotic War; - Conscripts; - Disabled people of groups I and II; - Orphans. Pre-registration for excursions is carried out by calling (017) 284-17-02. Museum address: 220072 Minsk, st. Akademicheskaya, 5 The material was prepared by Julia Theron.
Translation of the material into English is on the website
It’s cozy in the house-museum of Yakub Kolas: it seems that steps are about to sound on the stairs, the chair in the office will move away of its own accord, the springs of the sofa will bend, the typewriter will chirp. The spirit of the poet definitely hovers here. Sightseers wander leisurely through the halls, and the SB correspondent, together with the director of the State Literary and Memorial Museum of Yakub Kolas Zinaida Komarovskaya, looks over tasks for the future: two important dates are coming up in 2018 - the 95th anniversary of the creation of the poem “New Land” and 100 years of lyrical epic poem "Symon - Music".
The current staff of the museum is small, but it is amazing what kind of work is carried out by only 5 researchers. The poet had close ties with Vilnius - today cooperation has been established with Lithuanian colleagues from the A.S. Pushkin Literary Museum, a walking excursion route “Kolas and Vilnius” has been jointly developed in the places described in the poem “New Land” in the sections “Dziadzka and Vilni” , “Castle Gara” and “Pa Daroz ў Vilniu”. The Pushkin Literary Museum plans to create a separate exhibition dedicated to Kolas. Its collections include items from the house of the Kamenskys (the writer's wife's relatives): a table, a bed, a wall clock, an icon in a silver frame, a candlestick with an engraving from 1910.
In 2017, when the 135th anniversary of the classic was celebrated, in Vilnius, on the initiative of our embassy in Lithuania, a memorial plaque was installed on the house where Yakub Kolas worked for the Nasha Niva newspaper. The writer has not been forgotten in Uzbekistan, where he lived in evacuation in 1942 - 1943: in Tashkent, a memorial plaque on his house was restored and a bas-relief by sculptor Marina Borodina was installed. And poets from St. Petersburg for the first time translated the entire “Symon-Music” into Russian and published it in Northern Palmyra.
In short, there is something to be proud of and there are long-developed plans, the implementation of which the museum begins in the new year, preparing to celebrate two significant dates at once. But the most serious problem and greatest pain of Zinaida Komarovskaya over all the decades of work is the Lastok estate, part of the Nikolaevshchina branch, which unites 4 former “forestry villages” on the Radziwill lands where the poet’s parents lived. Lastok is a unique corner where a house built in 1890 has been preserved, and the only one of all the estates included in the branch that requires serious restoration and conservation. The director does not hide his sadness:
Zinaida Komarovskaya.
- Lastok is the brightest place of all the Kolasov estates; the poet lived here in his childhood, from 3 to 8 years old. It is in Lastok that the action of “Symon the Music” takes place, because Symonka is Kolas himself, a little boy in the lap of nature, for whom everything around was magical, wonderful, beautiful... It will be a great shame if this house is not preserved - but we are trying save it by all means. We have the developments to make a more comprehensive exhibition of “Symon the Music” there, to improve the territory, and to carry out thorough repairs. But to create a full-fledged museum, our efforts alone, even with the support of the Ministry of Culture, are not enough - the investments required are too serious. We tried to look for investors, but few people can bear such expenses alone.
12 km from the city, a forest road - places truly remote from civilization. But... on 2 hectares of land near Lastok, an agricultural estate could well appear, or even better - a writer's house like those that can be found in the corners of Poland or Estonia: a place where authors from all over the world come all year round to meet and get to know each other , work, and at the same time translate the Belarusian classic into your own languages - so that Kolas’s word continues to spread throughout the world.
Stolbtsovshchina pleases not only with its natural beauty and historical details. In Akinchitsy, Albuti, Smolny and Lastok, the artistic and memorial complex “Kolas Way” was created: rare expressive wooden sculptures by folk artists based on the works of Yakub Kolas unite all the museums of the branch.
- We would like more visitors,- Zinaida Komarovskaya sincerely worries. - Many years ago we were considering the excursion route Minsk - Nesvizh - Mir, and I raised this question: can we go to Akinchitsy, it’s only 2 km from Stolbtsy. It is necessary to show not only castles, you need to look at the life and life of those who served the Radziwills. However, this topic was ignored. We have developed cycling and skiing routes, and walking excursions, but there are not as many guests as we would like.
But the Kolasovsky places could become a nature reserve, no less serious and visited than the Russian Pushkin Hills. Is it really so difficult to slightly adjust popular tourist routes?
The Yakub Kolas Literary and Memorial Museum is a museum whose exhibition is dedicated to the life and work of the outstanding Belarusian poet, prose writer, playwright, publicist and teacher Yakub Kolas (Konstantin Mikhailovich Mitskevich, 1982-1956).
About the museum
The Yakub Kolas Museum was founded in 1956 and opened to the public in 1959. The museum is located in the house where the national poet of Belarus Yakub Kolas spent the last years of his life. The two-story wooden house and the adjacent garden with an area of 0.4 hectares are located on the territory of the Academy of Sciences of Belarus.
The museum exhibition is housed in 10 halls, two of which (the office and the bedroom) preserve the original interior of Kolas’s house. Among the museum's exhibits are personal belongings, historical documents and photographs, manuscripts and books.
Tourist information
Working hours: Monday - Saturday from 10.00 to 17.30; Sunday is a day off. The ticket office is open from 10.00 to 17.00.
Ticket prices: for adults - 20 thousand Belarusian rubles, for students - 14 thousand Belarusian rubles, for children - 10 thousand Belarusian rubles; For privileged categories of citizens, admission is free.
On the last Saturday of every month, admission to the museum is free for everyone.
Telephone: + 375 17 284 17 02
How to get there: walk from the metro station "Academy of Sciences". The museum is located behind the main building of the Academy of Sciences of Belarus.
Official site: www.yakubkolas.by
